Game Maker Studio .Net

Pre-Peer Review in the works...!

Near_Fantastica — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:42:00 GMT

Howdy,

After talking with one of my friends about the “Democratizing Game Distribution” microsoft’s solution to disruption of XNA games he ask if building a Pre-Peer Review was a good idea. I though about it for like a second and concluded it was a great idea....! So I hood-winked him into building me a add-on for my site (part of the site improvements I talked about) where users could walk through the workflow of submitting their games to the Peer Review system and local members of the community could then download and review the games just as they will in the normal system that way developers can get very fast feed back about their Package and fix things that need to be fix or change the rating before it goes on the Peer Review System which I have a feeling could take a little while for games to through. If everything is in working order and community members are following the same rules as the real Peer Reviewers then if you get the green light locally you should pass through the normal workflow with little or no problems.

After some talk it was concluded that both Windows, Xbox 360, and Zune games could apply for the process (even though right now only Xbox games can apply for the real Peer Review process) and this common rating system means that users know and understand what the ratings are and what to expect for a game regardless of the platform.

Take Care,
Near

GMS.net update 3

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:22:00 GMT

Howdy,

Before I left around Xmas I made some improvements to system I would like to share with you all now.

Languages - C# is now the one and only official language. That is until the XNA teem add support for more.

Content Pipeline - I worked very hard and I think I got everything working to fully support the XNA2.0 content pipeline which really rocks for a number of reasons but I will show them all off at the later date.

Resource Management - all artifacts in a project are stored the same way they are in a XNA C# project and there is not middle man any more you save a GMS.net project and you can turn around and open it in Visual Studio to continue to work away. A good friend of mine and I where talking about way people go to great lengths to try and remake the functionality of a program that already exists. Out of this I came to conclusion that I should not try and remake things in Visual Studio like the coding, project management, deployment, debugging, etc… that it dose so well. So I changed GMS.net to let Visual Studio manage all that stuff and do what it dose best…! GMS.net is more of a resource management and creation studio now. The coding and building and testing I leave up to Visual Studio. That being said the 2 will come packaged together GSE and GMS.net and live and work together to build great games…!

XNA2.0 Features - Some great things where released with XNA 2.0 (networking, gamer services, etc…) I have finally gotten all these things into the engine. I loved beating up my brother in some good old smashy smahy between my XBOX and this PC. I have plans to include some these features into the engine to handle living co-oping, mixed parties, and arena style of play. Those of you that know my SBABS will have some idea what is in store…!

Price - I have finally made up my mind GMS.net will cost about $60 US. I already hear the BOOs…! I have just invested too much time and energy into this product not to get something back from it. That being said I have plans to talk with the guys on the XNA team to see about get partner status and then giving the product away for free to all Premium Creatures Club members.

XNA Control - first off I still have hope MS will step up and release something official in this department they promised it in XNA2.0 and it got the axe I hope they put it back on the bill in the mean time I have made my own control and it reacts in a way most people may find confusing at first. It is a lot like a MVC. The Model is a Game Class that takes the Data as objects processes them. The View is my XNA control which takes and Game Class and renders it. The Controller is windwows form which takes the human input and translates that into data. Well I know I have confused just about everyone with that little speech so let me move on. Because you are working with a real Game class you can do anything you can in a normal XNA game and not just that you can be 99.999% sure it will render the exactly the same in game as you see in the Editor. As well that means you can use game Components and Services. This is a neat idea and something I am using in my map editor to handle different layers which lets the user add or remove layers that can be rendered. Some of you may remember that I have different layers other then just visual data like audio and pathfinding now if your map is not going to use these layers you can simple removed them which should in theory speed up the game ALOT…! As well you can even add your own or community Layer Components to handle any other number of interesting things. This way you can customize the map editor without having to rewrite it.

Events - I have firmed up the event system some. There was a time when I didn’t know if was going to use XML, Lua, or C# to handle the event processing. I have settled on using C#. Each event will be an instance of or its own Class and Event pages will just be methods pulled into or belonging to that class. I am leading towards having each event being its own class and storing all the data about it locally in the class fields etc. so that it’s complied and very fast…!

Well that about all the information output I can deal with for one day.

Take Care,
Near

Where's my Content...?

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Howdy,

Before I left I was in talks with Enterbrain about buying the rights to use of their RTP’s. This includes RPG Maker 95, 2000, 2003, and XP…! That should be enough content to hold people over for a little while. I am still in early talks and they at least seem interested although I am not promising anything yet.

That being said I still want to develop my own set of resources to take advantage of some of the features I have planed for GMS.net. As well as some resources for some other genders but I am leaving that off for a while. As well there is always the massive amount of content the XNA has released.

Take Care,
Near

XNA Community reach out to millions of gamers...!

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Howdy,

I am also very very very very happy to be an owner of an XBOX360…! This week at GDC the big boys at Microsoft rolled out their preview of the Xbox Live Community Games. This is the thing they have been talking about since the beginning, the Youtube of games...!

I have already downloaded everything I need and started to play these early demos winners of DBP contest. I love the design of the system they have set up. You build a game (and of course a GMS.net game will work), submit it to the new Creators Club website (coming in the spring), the game then is reviewed by the peers to make sure it meets the standards of XBOX Live community and if it dose it is added to the XNA Community Catalogue. I have already heard some of the ins and outs of the peer review stystem and it sounds like it will do it job well and links raters to developers, and even lets you get feed back from gamers about your game…!

If that was not good enough Microsoft has already committed to a “Graduation” pipeline for great community games. So games that people really love and download a lot can easily make the jump from community pool to the XBLA pool which means now you get paid for your great game…

I should note that the model on the windows side is still very much unchanged. But things where always ok on that front to be begin with.

Take Care,
Near

XNA 3.0 will support the Zune....@^%#(&!

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:04:00 GMT

Howdy,

XNA 3.0 is 3 for a reason. Announced at GDC this week XNA 3.0 will support development and deployment of XNA games to your Zune….!

I had a feeling this was coming down the pipe for some time now. What the feature list will include is still not really know. But I do know games will have access to the pictures and music stored locally. As well it will have networking much like XNA 2.0 that will support Zune to Zune hot point access.

I am so happy I didn’t buy an iPod touch before I went on my trip...!

Take Care,
Near

I Have Returned...!

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:02:00 GMT

Howdy,

It’s great to be back. For those of you that didn't know I have been on vacation for the last few months. But it is not going to last for the next few months I will be locked in a room developing a product one of the big banks.

On the lighter side when that contract is finished I plan to sit down and finish GMS.net and release a version for people to play with. You will indubitably see why I want to get something out there for people to play with in my next series of posts.

For those that are interested I also have big plans for a new site. Since I am redoing my own website I am planning to make some changes to this one as well.

Take Care,
Near

GMS.net update 2

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:29:00 GMT

Howdy,

Oh I love this time of year. Everyone gets geared up for present giving time. The snow is in the air. XNA 2.0 beta is just around the corner the same with GMS.net Beta 1. So when I continue to work away on the engine I came across an interesting library for XNA.

XNA Gif Animation Library

I remember from the RMXP days that gifs where something that a lot of people wanted… I am wondering if this is still the case and I should spend the time to include this in my object model.

Take Care,
Near

Venatio Studios' Application Framework

Near_Fantastica — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 19:37:00 GMT

Howdy,

Well my last post was some time ago and I have been quite busy since then. I had a nice little holiday but around that I designed a whole new piece of software for Venatio Studios.

Welcome to the age of Application Frameworks. I will be short on technical details simply for the fact most people will not understand them. An Application Framework layers up a model of development so one common application ‘hosts’ other programs. The overall goal is to make developing great looking and functional applications simpler when keeping this functionality in one common base that all host programs can take advanced of. This is a major idea I have been developing for years and I am happy it’s coming to completion.

Now the big news I have developed many small test programs to prove this model works things like Notepad, Paint, and SQLMaster. I am in the middle of moving and refactoring GMS.net into this new framework as a large scale test of the system. This will have very little effect on the end user of the product. What this does mean is that developers of Libraries (host programs for the Application Frameworks), developers of Packages (GMS.net pieces like 2D RPG or 3D FPS), and developers of Components (plug-ins for Packages) all have the same development experience and functionality if they choose to use it.

I plan on using this framework for all my own programs released in the future and I hope it will become a platform for others to start developing great applications on as well.

Take Care,
Near

Announcing XNA Game Studio 2.0

Near_Fantastica — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:27:00 GMT

Howdy,

Well Well Well, Xna 2.0 features have been officially released. There is the good and the bad.

First the bad!

Some of the things that are being released are going to set me back in development for quite some time because rather than use the controls I have development for XNA in WinForms, Microsoft is releasing controls the handle that correctly rather than my hashed together methods. This will result in a better product.

Now the good!

Create rich multiplayer games over Xbox LIVE using the new networking APIs.
Create Audio more effectively with the new XACT editor.
Host XNA Framework games easily inside a Windows Form.
Use the virtualized GraphicsDevice (this is great for WinForms).
Easily nest one component inside another thanks to improvements in GameComponent.

All these features are important to my development. So I am going to shut down development on my XNA components at least until the beta. So in the time being I am going to sit down and do a refractor on the whole product.

Take Care,
Near

XAudio2

Near_Fantastica — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:16:00 GMT

Howdy,

XAudio2 is in Beta as part of the August 2007 DirectX SDK and is meant to replace DirectSound and XAudio as a combined improved cross platform solution. Although there has been no official word yet that I can fine I believe this will be a new feature in XNA 2.0 coming this holiday. XACT is great and all but does not work well for GMS.net I am really looking forward to this XAudio2.

You can find more information about XAudio here.

Take Care,
Near

A first look at IronRuby

Near_Fantastica — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:31:00 GMT

Howdy,

Another small step closer to Iron Ruby you can read more here.

Take Care,
Near

CTP2.0 Features Video

Near_Fantastica — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:34:00 GMT

Howdy,

I made a video showing how to startup and the features of CTP2.0
http://www.gamemakerstudio.net/data/CTP2.wmv

Take Care,
Near

View Video
Format: wmv
Duration: 9:52

CTP2.0 Released...!

Near_Fantastica — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 14:22:00 GMT

Howdy,

Well CTP2.0 is here I did not fit in everything I wanted to be since I am going away for a while I wanted to release it now. Enjoy...

Requirements:

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86):

GMS.net Pre-Installer: This is a packaged includes C# express, DirectX9.0c, and XNA installers. YOU NEED THESE FOR GMS.NET TO FUNCTION CORRECTLY~!

GMS.net CTP2.0: This is Game Maker Studio .Net if you have everything above this is all you need…!

Enjoy,
Near

Behavior Maps

Near_Fantastica — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:23:00 GMT

Howdy,

I just finished another Interesting addition to GMS.net even though it’s in its most basic form I still it’s worth sharing. May I introduce the Behavior Editor!

The behavior Editor lets users drag and drop source files onto the canvas which are then reflected generating the blocks. The Orange handles lets users drag and connect inputs and outputs of different blocks. At this point it’s called a behavior map and can be saved as XML for use in any editor that supports it. It is the engine that dose all the hard work of link events/passing variables/and probing. I have yet to figure out how all the little deals are going to work so some things may change later in development but I think these will be a great addition Enemy and Event editors. As well as maybe a global ‘Drama Manger’

Take Care,
Near

CTP1.1 Released...!

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:50:00 GMT

Howdy,

Well the community has grown a lot since my last little test which many of you have remind me was far too short so before I release CTP2.0 which is almost ready. I am going to release CTP1.1 again for those of you that did not get a chance to play around with it. Keep in mind that it is a very simple early release and a lot of the problems you will find in CTP1.1 have already been fixed for CTP2.0 but feel free to submit error logs to the download section in case there is something I have overlooked. I am Working away on CTP2.0 which will focus on the database and should be finished soon. Now comes the fun part.

Requirements:

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86):

GMS.net Pre-Installer: This is a packaged includes C# express, DirectX9.0c, and XNA installers. YOU NEED THESE FOR GMS.NET TO FUNCTION CORRECTLY~!

GMS.net CTP1.1: This is Game Maker Studio .Net if you have everything above this is all you need…!

Enjoy,
Near

GMS.net Installer

Near_Fantastica — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:44:00 GMT

Howdy,

I know that the process of collecting all the installers needed to run GMS.net can be frighten at times, but no longer. Download this one product and it will guide you through the process step by step to get everything installed. Theres a preview of the good things to come.

* Hint Hint, I am talking about installer does this mean another release is right around the corner. Yes, yes it does in fact there are 2 release right around the corner CTP1.1 and CTP2.0 *

Take Care,
Near

Some Killer New Features

Near_Fantastica — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:36:00 GMT

Howdy,

I added some new features to GMS.net over the last few days I thought I would share with you.

The first one is the ‘Actipro SyntaxEditor’ v4 with .Net add-on and Web add-on. This is a super powerful syntax editor and running very much like Visual Studio dose with all the same features you would expect to fine there like syntax highlighting, intelligence, auto complete, comment generation, etc… as well with the .Net add-on I get this killer feature to handled projects source files and references which are reflected and added to the intelligence and A type/member drop-down list control.

The second one is ‘XNA packaging system’ which was released in the XNA refresh and lets user package there game for deployment on windows and 360. You still need all the normal bull to get the game down to the 360 but system has been stream lined to click off a button. Until the XNA team release a better way for 3^rd party developers to get content to the 360 this is system I am going to use.

Take Care,
Near

Game Camp Review

Near_Fantastica — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Howdy,

Well I have returned, sorry no pictures yet but I am working on that. I got to talk to technical director for XNA, showed off GMS.net, gave feedback on my experience, and got some feedback on upcoming improvements to XNA. Although we will have to wait till August when I hear the big news is coming. Anyways this is what I have learned about a few different areas.

DirectX: The XNA team has plans to move the framework over to support DirectX10 ASAP. GREAT NEWS ~!

Audio: Well it looks like this Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) is here to stay. Although there is some good news in this there are plans to include a lower level override to play audio and the ability to add more than just wav file to a project although what types is still unclear.

VB.net: we will have to wait for the big news in August but it looks like there are going add XNA MSBuild process for VB. Although from what I already know it would be limited to running on just windows unless they made a large update to the XNA framework.

DLR: I talked about the DLR as well and its benefits as a scripting language in games. They have told me it will work on windows no problem but on the 360 there are the same issues as VB.net although they are aware of how powerful supporting the DLR would be 360 and are investigating it.

I could continue with a lot more technical stuff but it is more interesting for me then you.

Take Care,
Near

This one time at Game Camp ~!

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:16:00 GMT

Howdy,

This weekend I will be heading off to Game Camp in Toronto for a whole day of XNA fun. I will take lots of pictures and collect as much info as I can. I will post my thoughts and images upon my return.

If you are going I will see you there. If you’re not you should look into it it’s going to be great fun and its free.

http://www.microsoft.com/canada/technet/energizeit/

Take Care,
Near

Ruby Is Coming to .Net via DLR

Near_Fantastica — Sat, 19 May 2007 02:39:00 GMT

Howdy,

Well fun being I just talked about my todo list and one of my good friends points me towards DLR. A Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) is just another thing Microsoft is doing to make my life simpler. They have been bashed about support for true dynamic languages, Python, Ruby, Jscript, VB among others. So some time back they set up to work on IronPython to prove it can work. Through that experience they came up this new DLR which will be part/extension of the .Net CLR (common language runtime).

What this means for you and me…? Ruby and Python are coming to .Net baby ~! These 2 languages are on my wish list of supported languages for GMS.net.

It’s still early to tell one way or another about the how this DLR project will turn out but I am keeping my eye on it.

Take Care,
Near

GMS.net Todo List

Near_Fantastica — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:43:00 GMT

Howdy,

Someone asked me the other day if I had a master list of things I was working on for GMS.net so I figured I would share the list with the rest of you.

= Now Finsihed~!

Actors Editor
Animation Editor
Armor Editor
Class Editor
Character Editor
Creature Editor
Item Editor
Skills Editor
States Editor
System Editor
Weapons Editor

Event Editor
Environment Editor

Map Editor

- Tile

- Environmental

- Numeric

- Audio

- Pathfinding

C# Engine

- Convert it to VB

I am working on the Map Editor right now and its rather complex (to finish) not to use (hopefully). Then I will work the system editors and the C# Engine then convert it to VB.

I will likely have another CTP before I finish all these features. It more and likely will be similar to the last one with little more features running a C# Engine and the final Map Editor. Then the Beta should have all the features on this list with some more advanced ones to come later in later Betas or after release.

Take Care,
Near

GMS.net Update

Near_Fantastica — Tue, 15 May 2007 02:55:00 GMT

Howdy,

Ya that about sums it up. I have finally had the time to sit down and continue working on GMS.net. I have spent the last few days updating GMS.net and its components to work with the new XNA refresh. It’s fun stuff and there are few things I want to highlight.

I add support for the new Packaging system. This system still needs the XNA GSE installed to function correctly but it does show promise for better things to come along with simplifying things right now and is a great way t get your games made in GMS.net down to the 360 without all that mucking around in GSE.

Another great feature I added for the samples is the PrimitiveBatch which is something I have been dyeing for in both Editor in the Engine. For those of you that that don’t know the PrimitiveBatch is a means to draw simple 2d shapes to the 2d like lines. I am planning on adding all the basic shapes to the batch as well.

We are beginning see Microsoft’s vision for what they wanted for XNA soon you will all see my vision for GMS.net

Take Care,
Near

FLUIX - flash for XNA

Near_Fantastica — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:31:00 GMT

Howdy,

FLUIX

I came across this the other day and was very impressed with its possibilities. This project lets you use a flash movie for the UI in your game. The swf you generate in flash is run through the content pipeline and converted. It’s not prefect but dose do an nice job and even lets you pass messages between C# and action script which I have already made a nice test Main Menu and a test HUD for a racing game with dials, gauges, and positions at update from the C# code.

I will have a standard type window and scene setup wizard but for all you flash masters out there this might be for you.

Take Care,
Near

WTF is PCSA and why has it been keeping Near up all night !

Near_Fantastica — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:24:00 GMT

Howdy,

I just I would blog about what has been going on lately. Cheers to all those taking part in the Build IT contest over at RMXP.org. I am in the middle of remaking the Autoltiles, Tilesets, Characterset, Environment, and Map editors for the next release. I wanted to make a lot of changes to reflect ideas from the gRTP contest and feedback from users to get it right now instead of trying to change it later.

Although this whole process is move rather slow and this is due to another project from mine for my college which is to deal with process control in small applications the project is Process Control in Small Application (PCSA) which may have some impact on GMS.net so let me example the basics of PCSA.

A brief history lesson, process control is not a new idea and has been around for a while and now with technologies like BPEL and Windows Workflow Foundations are beginning to standardize this idea. But these technologies are targets at the process control been services and are normally far too large and complex for small application developers despite the befits that could come from process control. Manly developers of small applications don’t have the knowledge need to use these technologies. So process control was limited mainly to large enterprise applications. The idea behind PCSA is solve this problem by packages a process control engine into a small light weight reference developers could include in their projects, set elements to expose invoke points and arguments directly with in the code, develop a set of xml tags used by the engine to control the process which the user then uses to control the process of the application, and then integrate this whole development experience into visual studio with a visual editor to handle the development of xml process control document.

Now most people read this will have no idea what that means. Well let me explain it in more English terms rather than a project layout. Users interact with a product by controlling a User Interface UI. We (programmers) code against this UI interaction controlling the flow of the application through code. This model as worked and continued to work but it’s very ‘Hard Coded’, the idea behind PCSA is that this interaction of UI is not ‘Hard Coded’ but instead is expressed through an xml file which contains the process which these pieces interact which is then acted out by an small engine.

Ok but what does this mean for me, let alone GMS.net…? Well as I found out in a graphics program like GMS.net (and yes GMS.net is really a glorified graphics program) there are a lot of respective task. For example get a tile place a tile, get a tile place a tile. How many times do we do that when building a game…? Well this model of process control would let you the user develop a XML script which would define that repetitive behavior or any behavior throughout the whole process of building a game. This in general places a lot of control back I the hands of the users giving them control of process of the blocks with every little knowledge of the what the blocks are really do on the inside. But at the same time minimizing the extra code need to include this functionally, keep it simple and friendly to use.

I just thought I would share this with you all because it might find its way into GMS.net as a practical test if/when we get the system up and running.

Take Care,
Near

XNA Update Coming to a PC near you this April~!

Near_Fantastica — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:10:00 GMT

Howdy,

Does a little dance and this why I am working in XNA Microsoft is doing half my job for me :D

http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/archive/2007/03/08/announcing-the-xna-game-studio-express-update.aspx

This is a link to the XNA team blog on which it announces some updates to XNA some of which are important to you some of which are important to me... Can’t wait to get my hands on the new version and embedded it into GMS.net.

Be forewarned some of these changes look major and in turn will more and likely push back GMS.net next release as I will surely want to integrate these into the
next release.

Take Care,
Near